With over a decade of research around Mars, NASA wraps up MAVEN mission

After over a decade of atmospheric research around Mars, the MAVEN spacecraft has logged its final report, US space agency NASA announced Wednesday.

“The first mission devoted to observing the Martian atmosphere and its evolution, NASA’s MAVEN (Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution), has ended after more than 11 years in orbit,” NASA said on its website.

MAVEN’s original mission only lasted for one year, it added, meaning it far exceeded scientists’ expectations.

The spacecraft was heard last on Dec. 6, when it experienced an unexpected loss of signal after it passed behind the Red Planet, the space agency explained.

The agency said when it convened an “anomaly review board” in February to evaluate recovery efforts and assess the spacecraft’s probable current state, it determined that the spacecraft “is not recoverable, and it is no longer capable of performing its science and data relay mission.”

It added that standard procedures were followed to archive the mission’s entire dataset and announced that the official process to terminate the MAVEN mission had been initiated.

Launched in 2013, MAVEN reached Mars in 2014 and began studying the planet’s upper atmosphere and its interaction with solar winds.

“The MAVEN mission has truly advanced our understanding of the Martian atmosphere and evolution. This dataset has had a tremendous impact on the field,” said Shannon Curry, MAVEN’s principal investigator and a researcher at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“Our science team is exceptionally proud of all of these amazing discoveries.”